Art Terms (D)

Question 1

Dada

Answer 1

Dada was an art movement formed during the First World War in Zurich in negative reaction to the horrors and folly of the war. The art, poetry and performance produced by dada artists is often satirical and nonsensical in nature

Question 2

De Stijl

Answer 2

De Stijl was a circle of Dutch abstract artists who promoted a style of art based on a strict geometry of horizontals and verticals (Mondrian)

Question 3

Decandence

Answer 3

Decadence generally refers to an extreme manifestation of symbolism which appeared towards the end of the nineteenth century and emphasised the spiritual, the morbid and the erotic

Question 4

Decalcomania

Answer 4

Decalcomania is a blotting process whereby paint is squeezed between two surfaces to create a mirror image

Question 5

Décollage

Answer 5

Décollage is a French word meaning literally to unstick, generally associated with a process used by artists of the nouveau réalisme (new realism) movement that involved making art from posters ripped from walls

Question 6

Deconstruction

Answer 6

Deconstruction is a form of criticism first used by French philosopher Jacques Derrida in the 1970s which asserts that there is not one single intrinsic meaning to be found in a work, but rather many, and often these can be conflicting

Question 7

Degenerate Art

Answer 7

Degenerate art is the English translation of the German phrase Entartete Kunst which is the label the National Socialist (Nazi) party, under its leader Adolf Hitler, applied to art they did not approve of, in an attempt to bring art under their control

Question 8

Direct Carving

Answer 8

Direct carving is an approach to making carved sculpture where the actual process of carving suggests the final form rather than a carefully worked out preliminary model

Question 9

Divisionism

Answer 9

Divisionism is a late nineteenth century painting technique that involved using tiny adjacent dabs of primary colour to create the effect of light

Question 10

Drypoint

Answer 10

Drypoint is a printmaking process in which a design is drawn on a plate with a sharp, pointed needle-like instrument (intaglio)

Question 11

Dye Destruction Print

Answer 11

A dye destruction print (Cibachrome print, Ilfochrome print) is a print made using a photographic printing process in which colour dyes embedded in the paper are selectively bleached away (destroyed) to form a full-colour image